


Sleepless

by wheel_pen



Series: Agent and Doctor [16]
Category: The Bourne Legacy (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 22:54:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3306407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jeremy’s been given a drug that prevents him from sleeping, leading to crabbiness, chattiness, and general psychosis. Rachel is called in to deal with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleepless

Rachel had a premonition when she saw Quarles and Delu standing outside the observation room—a premonition that Jeremy would be involved somehow. He was away on missions a lot, of course, and she treated a number of other agents as well; but it seemed like she never got an emergency summons unless it was about Jeremy.

“Ah, Dr. Ward,” Delu greeted.

“Doctor,” Quarles acknowledged.

Sure enough, Jeremy was inside the observation room, sitting forlornly on the exam table. He was wearing a nice suit, pale grey with a seafoam green tie; but his face was drawn, with dark circles under his eyes. “What’s wrong with him?” she wanted to know.

“He says he’s been given a drug that prevents him from sleeping,” Quarles relayed to her.

“Been awake over forty-eight hours,” Delu added.

“Yeah, he looks it,” Rachel agreed. “What drug?”

“We don’t know,” Delu admitted.

“He won’t let anyone get close enough to take a blood sample,” Quarles went on leadingly, and suddenly Rachel realized why she was there.

“We even tried that orderly we thought he liked—the big guy?” Delu told her.

“Luis?”

“Yeah, but—no go,” he shrugged. “No one’s gotten hurt, but he’s just a little psychotic.”

“He’s _always_ a little psychotic,” Rachel pointed out bluntly. People should just get used to it, and stop pussyfooting around him.

“Well, he seems _less_ psychotic around you,” Quarles noted, equally blunt. “So—“ He indicated the security door.

“Of course,” Rachel assured them, as Delu keyed the code that opened the first door. It wasn’t that she _minded_ helping Jeremy; that was her job, and she didn’t like to see him sick or injured. She just didn’t think there was any big secret to why he responded better to her—she tried to treat him, and all her patients, with respect, like they were real people (albeit with some good-natured ribbing thrown in). Granted, that was hard to maintain around here sometimes, with everyone whispering about the scary things they’d heard the agents had done, and with the agents themselves sometimes behaving more like robots, or animals, than real people.

“Oh, and he’s kind of chatty, too,” Delu added as she waited in the foyer for the second door to open. “Sort of rambling, like he’s on speed or something. I guess.” Chatty Jeremy? That would be a new one.

The inner door opened into the room after the outer one had completely sealed, and Rachel saw the cart with the blood-drawing supplies right away—apparently it hadn’t gotten any closer before Jeremy had objected.

“I told you not to call her!” Jeremy shouted suddenly, and Rachel rounded the corner to see him pacing back and forth, now agitated. “No, no, no, no,” he muttered, jaw tightly clenched.

“Jeremy,” she began.

He turned on her, eyes blazing, which was enough to pin her in place even though he was a good eight feet away. “Get out!” he ordered her. “Go away. Now!”

“I heard you’ve been given some unknown drug that could kill you,” Rachel continued seriously, not moving any closer, “but you won’t let anyone take a blood sample so we can figure out how to help you.” He was still pacing furiously across a small part of the room, muttering expletives. “Was it an intelligence-lowering drug?”

His head snapped up and he glared at her. Rachel couldn’t say she wasn’t a little scared; he obviously wasn’t fully in control of himself. But when she was scared her nature was often to plunge ahead anyway, especially in a medical situation. So she took a step into the room.

Jeremy retreated rapidly, not sure what to do with his hands or where else he could go. Rachel approached slowly, one step at a time, not wanting him to feel trapped. He bumped into the exam table and promptly scrambled on top of it, crouching warily.

“Get down, you look ridiculous,” Rachel told him matter-of-factly. “Nice suit, by the way.”

“Thanks,” he replied shortly, climbing back down to sit on the edge of the table.

Rachel grabbed his wrist to check his pulse. “Your heart rate is through the roof, tiger,” she noted.

“Could we—could we use less violent nicknames?” he requested with some exasperation, rubbing his eyes hard with his other hand.

“Stop, you’ll scratch something,” she admonished, pulling his hand down. “We could go with something cuddlier,” she added, trying not to smirk too much, “but just so you know, I always thought of it like Hobbes from _Calvin & Hobbes_. Who is a soft toy tiger.”

Jeremy blinked rapidly, then squeezed his eyes shut hard, as though this might help her comment make more sense to him.

“Are you in any pain?” she went on more clinically.

“I don’t know,” he claimed, shaking his head in frustration.

“Do you feel tired, or more like jittery?” she pressed.

“I don’t know. Both,” he told her. He squirmed off the table and started pacing again. “Tired.”

“Just tired?” she checked, hoping the symptoms might get them started on narrowing the list of drugs.

“Yes, _just_ tired,” he snapped, clearly not considering it _just_ anything. Rachel raised an eyebrow and he tried to be more helpful. “No, I feel like—like _you_ feel when it’s your time of the month and you stayed up late the night before and have to come in early to treat me and haven’t had your coffee yet!” He punctuated this by smacking his palm hard against the wall, making everyone jump. Then he buried his face against his arm in frustration.

“So… inappropriate and hostile?” Rachel surmised dryly after a beat.

“That seems accurate,” he agreed after a moment.

“Well… too bad we can’t think of _any_ way to help the situation,” Rachel went on flatly.

Jeremy took a few seconds to get himself under control, then suddenly spun around and started taking off his jacket. “Okay, let’s do this,” he declared, obviously forcing himself to go with the sensible solution despite his instincts.

Rachel jumped on the opportunity to draw the cart closer and pull on some gloves while he loosened his collar and rolled up a sleeve. “We’ll go with three vials,” she warned him, noting that they were already labeled. “Sit on the table.” The box of granola bars on a lower shelf of the cart reminded her of something, though. “When’s the last time you ate something?”

“I don’t remember,” he responded, without really trying.

“I’d rather you ate something first,” she hedged, “so you don’t feel sick or dizzy after.”

“It wasn’t really that long ago that I ate something,” he reversed. “But I can’t remember if it was two-point-four-three hours ago, or more like four-point-three-two—“

“Jeremy,” Rachel interrupted him flatly, “what are you doing?” He looked at her blankly, and she indicated her hands, which he had brought together and neatly bound with the tie.

“Oh. That,” he replied with some embarrassment. “Um…”

Rachel gave him an unamused look. “Were you going to tie me up and put me in the corner?”

“Um, a little bit,” he admitted uncomfortably. “Well, not really. I was thinking about it. Just in case.”

“Just in case of _what_?” Rachel wanted to know.

“Well, you never know,” he claimed. “It’s important to have contingency plans. I was going to gag you, too, because I knew you wouldn’t be quiet.”

“How sweet,” Rachel responded, not sweetly. “Untie me before I get upset with you.”

“Oh, right,” he agreed, having apparently forgotten that part.

“I’ll keep this,” she decided, putting the tie in her coat pocket.

“Sorry,” Jeremy told her awkwardly.

Rachel shook her head and wrapped a band around his upper arm, then swabbed over a vein with some alcohol. “Last chance to freak out before I pick up a needle,” she warned him.

He nodded tightly. “Go ahead.”

Rachel pressed the needle in and started to draw the first vial of blood. His feet twitched frantically and he couldn’t keep his other hand still, first gripping the edge of the table, then running it through his hair, then rubbing his eyes.

“Stop that,” she reminded him. “Do your eyes itch?”

“They’re dry.”

“Could be a caffeine base,” Rachel mused. “How was the drug administered?”

“Dissolved in coffee,” he reported.

“So you wouldn’t have noticed any unusual taste?” she checked, switching to the second vial. He indicated no. Then she remembered something. “What were you doing drinking coffee anyway? You’re not supposed to have caffeine.” Maybe this was why.

“I was blending in,” he told her, a bit defensively. “Anyway, they _said_ they’d given me something.”

“Have you been drinking plenty of water?” she questioned.

“ _Yes_ ,” he told her, as though this precaution was painfully obvious.

“You are crabby, aren’t you,” Rachel noted. “Last vial.”

“Just like you when it’s your—“

“Hey,” she interrupted, “let’s not ever mention my _time of the month_ again, okay? Let’s have a little agreement about that.”

“Okay,” he nodded, as though he thought she was being silly. “Like you after you broke up with Steve because he was still sleeping with his wife—“ He cut himself off when Rachel gave him a sharp look. “Um, because he’d told you he was legally separated so you weren’t breaking the CIA code of conduct by knowingly engaging in an adulterous affair,” he added quickly.

She put the last vial of blood on the cart and pressed a bandage over the puncture wound. “Thanks for mentioning that,” she replied sarcastically. “You know our bosses are watching, right?”

“They’re always watching,” Jeremy noted gloomily, holding the bandage to his arm while she took the samples to the small door that led to the lab on the other side of the wall. It was far too small for anyone to get through but was sealed with a key code anyway. Once it hissed open she set the vials inside and closed it up again, feeling tremendously relieved that someone was finally going to be able to start work on an antidote. Cranky, rambling Jeremy was not exactly her favorite person to deal with.

She pulled off her gloves. “Okay, so that’s—“

Jeremy grabbed her arm suddenly, yanking her back against the table with his arms locked around her and one hand at her throat—not squeezing, but showing that he _could_ , any second. “I’m not letting you walk out of here,” he threatened low in her ear.

“I wasn’t _going_ to walk out of here, jacka-s,” Rachel snapped, once her heart dropped back down to her chest. “I was _going_ to stay here and keep you company.”

Immediately Jeremy took his hand off her throat and his arms around her loosened to more of an embrace. “Sorry, sorry,” he told her quickly.

“Just because you’re sick doesn’t mean you can act like a jerk,” she informed him frostily.

He rested his forehead on her shoulder in defeat. “I know, I’m sorry,” he repeated. “Don’t leave.”

Rachel sighed. “I’m not going to leave,” she assured him, squeezing his hand. He was obviously feeling guilty about his lack of control and she didn’t want to add to his stress any further. She pushed gently at his arms, then more firmly until he got the idea of letting her go, then she sat down on the edge of the table beside him. “It might be a few hours before they have any results,” she warned.

He jumped off the table and started to pace around the room; Rachel sighed and tried to make herself more comfortable on the exam table, deciding that this was going to be a long afternoon. “You had salad for lunch today,” he announced.

Okay, they were going to play _that_ game. “Correct.”

“But you put ranch dressing on it,” he went on. “Why would you get a salad, then drip fat all over it?” His tone suggested this question was crucial to the continued survival of the universe.

“Well—“ Rachel began.

“Wait, wait, wait,” he instructed, thinking hard. “It’s Thursday. The entrée in the cafeteria is meat loaf. You don’t like the meat loaf. So you’re forced to get a salad, but you make it more palatable with the dressing.”

This was, of course, exactly right. “ _Nobody_ likes the meat loaf,” Rachel added idly. “Even Karl won’t eat it.”

“Dr. Zhu likes it,” Jeremy corrected.

“Well.”

His look said he agreed that only made the substance even more suspect. He walked back and forth silently for a couple minutes, which only resulted in him being more wound up.

“What did I have for breakfast?” she quizzed him.

“Cinnamon toast,” he answered immediately.

“Wrong.”

“G-------t!” Jeremy snapped, knocking over a chair.

“Hey, easy there, ti—uh, panda,” Rachel advised, ending lamely. He blinked at her with a put-upon expression. “Sorry, my mind went to _Kung Fu Panda_ ,” Rachel confessed. This did not clear anything up for him. “What’s your favorite movie?” she asked.

“I don’t watch movies. Except whatever with you.” Her look suggested this was not a very helpful answer, so he tried again. “Um, I think I liked _The Wizard of Oz_.”

“Okay, so _Kung Fu Panda_ is just like that,” Rachel claimed, “but with more kung fu, and a panda. Both have flying monkeys, though.”

Jeremy stared at her. “I think I’m having auditory hallucinations,” he finally announced. “I thought just now you said something about pandas and monkeys and kung fu.”

Rachel grinned. “No, that’s what I said.”

He glared as though she were deliberately making his life difficult. “A cinnamon roll.”

“No.”

“You ate cinnamon.”

“Yes.”

“ _In what form_?”

Rachel frowned at him. “You’re sweating,” she noticed with concern.

“It’s hot in here,” Jeremy claimed. “Cinnamon—how?”

“Come here,” she instructed and he obeyed reluctantly, flinching when she put her hand on his forehead and cheek. “You’re burning up,” she noted. “I’m going to take your temperature.” Jeremy decided to lift her down from the table then wouldn’t let go, forcing her to back up towards the medical cart with him only a few inches away.

“What about the cinnamon?” he persisted. A small battle of wills ensued over the thermometer, which Jeremy lost. “Cinn—“ he tried to repeat around it.

“Quiet,” Rachel ordered. “Or I will find someplace else to stick that.” He stayed quiet. “It was Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal,” she finally revealed, “which is a cereal, and not at all cinnamon toast,” she added over his wordless objections. The thermometer beeped and she took it out of his mouth. “One-oh-three,” she reported worriedly.

“One-oh-three-point-two,” Jeremy corrected.

“Stop pacing and go lie down,” Rachel told him and with some hesitation he threw himself facedown on the padded exam table. “Drink this,” she added, pushing a cup of water with a straw at him.

He sighed and rested his head against his arm, clearly trying to calm down but not succeeding. “Sit up here with me,” he requested, so Rachel scooted up over the edge of the table and leaned back against him.

“Let me know if you get too hot,” she cautioned. They were quiet for several minutes; she could still feel Jeremy twitching reflexively behind her. “Do you think they’re still watching us?” she asked, glancing at the large mirror that was also a window from the hallway.

“On a monitor somewhere,” Jeremy opined. “They’re not standing out there anymore.”

“Oh? What makes you say that?”

“I can see through the mirror sometimes.” He lifted his head and stared hard at the mirror for a moment, then relaxed and put his head back down. “The hallway’s empty.”

“You can’t see through the mirror,” Rachel refuted.

“It’s just polarized light,” he countered. “I just have to concentrate and focus my eyes the right way.”

Rachel glanced at him to make sure his eyes were now closed, then tried the trick herself. It didn’t work. “I don’t believe you,” she decided mildly.

This didn’t bother him. “I grew the tooth back.”

“Yes, you did, Sharky,” she allowed with some amusement. “That was pretty weird.”

He was quiet for long enough that she hoped he had somehow fallen asleep, even though she could feel his quick breaths at her back. “Have you ever been to Dubai?” he asked suddenly.

“No,” she replied. “I went to Cozumel once for Spring Break. And in eighth grade I went to Bavaria with the band.”

“Band?” Jeremy asked in confusion.

“The school band?”

“Band of _what_?” he persisted.

“ _Musicians_ ,” she tried to clarify. “Little fourteen-year-old musicians toting flutes and violins around Germany, performing in public squares.”

Jeremy gave this some thought. “Your life is weird,” he judged, and the statement was too absurd for Rachel to laugh at.

“I was the _third_ flute,” she went on, “which is not very good. I was the least-talented flute player in the band. But a flute was about the easiest instrument to carry around, so that’s why I chose it.”

“Was it your disgrace in adolescent artistic endeavors that led to your later juvenile delinquency?”

Jeremy had his arm draped over his eyes and thus missed the glare Rachel threw at him. “No, wisea-s,” she shot back, and he lifted his arm to glance at her. “It was, um… a reaction to being moved around so much during my teenage years. For my dad’s job. In the military.”

“I read your file,” Jeremy assured her, if such information could be considered reassuring. “You stole a car.”

“I was only an accessory,” she insisted quickly. “My _boyfriend_ stole the car. We didn’t even take it off the base.”

“You display an unhealthy attraction to men of destructive morality,” he judged.

“Why are those men so good-looking, _that’s_ what I want to know,” Rachel replied lightly. “How do you feel?” she asked, changing the subject.

“The same.”

“You seem better.”

“With effort.”

“It’s appreciated,” Rachel assured him. “Why did you ask if I’d ever been to Dubai?” she followed up a moment later.

“I wanted to know if you’d ever been to Dubai,” he answered flatly.

Rachel rolled her eyes. Then she had another thought. “Do you want me to turn down the lights?” she offered. Even a normal person would have trouble relaxing under the clinical fluorescent glare.

“Yes,” he agreed, so Rachel slid off the table and walked back over to the door, looking for some kind of dimmer switch. Unfortunately it looked like it was either all or nothing, so she tried switching the lights off. Since the room had no outside windows, it dropped immediately to pitch black.

“Great,” she muttered when she realized she couldn’t see a thing, and had to navigate back across the room. She took a tentative step forward, knowing intellectually that none of the equipment was in her way. And she ran smack into Jeremy, who pushed her back against the wall.

“They’ll have to switch to the night-vision and infrared cameras now,” he pointed out, way too close for Rachel’s comfort in the pitch blackness.

“Was this just part of some cunning plan?” she asked, only partly in jest. She tried to push past him but he didn’t budge.

“I do see much better in the dark than most people,” he agreed. “And with no one waiting outside I could kill you long before any help arrived.”

If he was looking for a fear reaction—increased heart rate and breathing, muscle tension—he got it. But that wasn’t _all_ he got. “Well with the speed that door opens, I’d be dead even if someone was standing right outside,” she quipped darkly.

“That’s true.”

“Well if we’ve moved past the whole killing me thing,” she went on after a moment, “back off and quit being a bully.” She pushed on his chest, not an aggressive shove that might set him off, but more like one would apply force to a piece of furniture.

Jeremy moved aside and Rachel took several steps into the darkness away from him. “Stop,” she said suddenly.

“How did you know I was here?” Jeremy asked with some indignation, only inches away again.

“Jeremy, you are _radiating_ heat,” she pointed out. “You must be _blinding_ whoever’s watching the infrared camera.”

“D----t,” he swore, disappointed.

“I know, it’s so sad you won’t be able to recreate your own horror movie in here with me,” she replied sarcastically, heartily regretting her nice impulse to lower the lights for him.

Not to mention all the zombie movies they’d watched together.

“Well, I only came over to help you back to the table,” he claimed. “Move right six inches.” She decided to take his advice and didn’t run into anything. “But I got distracted.”

“By the thought of killing me.”

“Left three inches.”

“Pretty sure that’s considered the height of rudeness in some cultures, pal,” she added.

“I’m not even touching you,” he protested, as though she were being overdramatic. “Right eleven inches.”

“There wasn’t anything in the way when I walked to the light switch,” Rachel snapped. “Did you make an obstacle course while you were sneaking up behind me like a crazy axe-murderer?” She refused to follow his direction and promptly banged into something.

“Yes,” Jeremy admitted. “Here.” He put his hands on her waist from behind and guided her back to the exam table, which seemed farther than she remembered, perhaps because she was now limping slightly.

“Oh, I was going to put a heart monitor on you,” she remembered, “so I would be alerted if you kicked off in the dark. But I got distracted. By the thought of you killing me,” she added pointedly.

“You wait here, and I’ll get it,” Jeremy offered. She heard him rummaging around, followed by the squeak of a monitor stand rolling closer—sounds which had been noticeably absent when he was making his obstacle course—then she felt the telltale heat nearby. The heart monitor started beeping, too rapidly to be healthy but no faster than she expected, then the padding on the exam table creaked. “Are you going to sit up here?” he asked politely.

“It doesn’t really seem like a smart idea, but that’s what people in horror movies do all the time, so—“

“I’m not going to hurt you, Dr. Ward.” Jeremy sounded utterly sincere, but then he usually did; it was the underlying tone of self-loathing that sold her on it.

“Okay,” Rachel agreed. “Are you watching? I can’t see anything.” She scooted up on the edge of the table, feeling Jeremy’s warmth behind her. “A warm, dark, quiet room,” she commented, unable to stop herself from yawning. “Maybe I’ll lay down and take a nap while we wait.”

“Cooler rooms are more conducive to sleep,” Jeremy had to point out.

She ignored this. “Can you move over any? I don’t want to roll off the edge.”

“I won’t let you roll off the edge.”

Rachel stretched out on her side, knowing Jeremy was only inches away. This could get inappropriate very quickly, she thought, in several different ways. If it hadn’t already.

“You don’t think you’ll fall asleep?” she checked.

“Unlikely.”

“Well, we can keep talking if you want,” she offered. “It’s the middle of the afternoon, after all.”

“Okay,” he agreed.

“So what do you want to talk about?” Rachel prompted after a minute.

“I’ll think of something,” he assured her. While she waited she closed her eyes, which didn’t make much difference anyway, and pretty soon she was asleep.

**

Halvard, who was monitoring them, was nearly asleep too, when Director Quarles strode up. “What’s the status on Jeremy Green?” he asked abruptly, and Halvard’s mind jerked into gear.

“Uh, lab is still working on the antidote,” he reported, refreshing their page. “They’ve narrowed down the class of the compound and are hopeful they’ll have it soon.” He had little idea what that meant—he was a security tech, not a chemist—but that was what their status update read.

“And _actual_ Jeremy Green?” Quarles prompted, peering at the dim, greenish image on the monitor. That was the night vision view; the monitor next to it was infrared and showed two horizontal bodies, one of them blazing red-orange and the other more muted.

“No change,” Halvard shrugged. “I think she’s still asleep.”

“And he’s just laying there?”

“Um, sometimes he plays with her hair and sniffs it,” Halvard reported uncomfortably. It was a good thing he wasn’t allowed to tell people details about his job, because some of them he wouldn’t _want_ to tell.

Quarles merely shrugged a little. “Let me know if there are any changes,” he instructed, and then he left to bother someone else.

**

Rachel woke up groggy and disoriented, in total darkness. “Oh, G-d, where am I?” she mumbled, only partly joking. “What time is it? What century is it?”

Jeremy grabbed her hip. “Careful, you’ll roll off the table,” he warned, helping her sit up. “It’s six thirty-three PM,” he added.

“No wonder I’m starving,” she noted. “Six thirty and no one has any progress to report? I should get overtime pay for this.”

“I think you should get hazard pay for this,” Jeremy opined thoughtfully.

Rachel heartily agreed. “How do you feel?”

“The same.” The heart monitor was still beeping at the frantic pace she remembered.

“You are still really warm,” she noted. “Did you get any sleep at all?”

“No.”

“So you just laid there in the dark for three and a half hours, silently seething with rage and battling the urge to smother me?” she suggested.

His hesitation was somehow worse than if he’d just said yes. “I don’t think I’m seething with rage,” he finally decided.

“That’s it, I’m turning on the lights,” Rachel declared, hopping off the table.

“Wait, watch out for the—“

Rachel banged into something, belatedly remembering Jeremy’s little obstacle course. She didn’t really fall down but rather decided that sitting on the floor right then was her best option.

“Jeremy.”

“Are you okay?” he wanted to know.

“ _You_ get the light.”

“Okay,” he agreed. The beeping of the heart monitor died as he detached himself from it, and then there were a few seconds of absolute silence. Rachel wondered if he had gotten up yet. Then his voice came from the other side of the room. “I’m going to turn it on.”

Rachel covered her eyes. “Okay!” The light came on and she tried to let her eyes adjust. Jeremy crouched down beside her, also shading his eyes, which were watering.

“Are you okay?” he repeated.

“Yes,” Rachel sighed. “Help me up.” Jeremy pulled her to her feet—it was like being embraced by an electric blanket set on high. “You need some more water,” she judged, then had to pry herself out of his grip to get him some, weaving around the chairs, carts, and monitors he’d strewn across the room. She checked her phone while he drank. “They’ve identified the drug,” she reported in an upbeat tone. “So it shouldn’t be too long before they have an antidote.”

“Are you going to leave?” Jeremy asked worriedly.

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Rachel replied. “I could use some food, though. Hey, up there!” She waved at a camera. “A pepperoni pizza would be great about now. What about you?” she asked him.

Jeremy shrugged. “I’m not really hungry. There’s granola bars there,” he reminded her.

She had forgotten. “Oh, that’s right, good idea. That will tide—“ Something made of glass smashed into the wall beside her head and she whirled around, shock and anger on her face.

“I missed! I missed on purpose!” Jeremy assured her, already backing up with his hands in a defensive position.

Rachel was not at all mollified and he scrambled up on top of the exam table as she advanced. “Oh good, because I just _love_ shards of glass flying past my face—“

This changed his attitude. “Did you get hit?” he asked, jumping back down to the floor. “I calculated the average shrapnel pattern—“ He tried to turn her face to see if she’d been cut and she slapped his hands away angrily. This triggered him and he grabbed her hands, spinning her around and pinning her against the exam table. For a long moment they just glared at each other.

“Let. Go,” Rachel ordered distinctly and Jeremy did so hastily.

“Right. Sorry,” he told her, and he started pacing again.

Rachel’s phone buzzed and she saw it was the lab. “Hello?” Jeremy started to join her but she held up her hand, stopping him in his tracks. “No, you stay over there, I’m still mad at you.”

“ _Dr. Ward? We have an antidote ready_ ,” said the lab tech. “ _We’re putting it in the pass-through_.”

“Do an identity challenge,” Jeremy suggested. “Challenge: peacock.”

Rachel rolled her eyes but decided he had a point. “Challenge: peacock,” she repeated into the phone. Then it occurred to her that she didn’t remember the response for that one.

“ _Response: cotton_ ,” the tech said.

“Cotton?” she asked Jeremy, who nodded. “Okay, thank you,” she added into the phone. She keyed her code in and opened the pass-through door, pulling out a small syringe of blue liquid. “What _is_ this stuff?” she wanted to know, holding it up to the light. “It looks like Windex.”

“ _Look, Dr. Ward_ ,” the tech replied, in a slightly snippy tone, “ _we’ve been scrambling for the last four hours to figure out the drug and its counteragent_.” Rachel’s eyebrows went up, dangerously so. “ _If you inject him and he doesn’t keel over dead, we can all go home, so_ —“

“What is your name?” Rachel asked coldly. Jeremy started to wander closer and she pointed at him, sending him back to the other corner.

“ _Um, Valdez_ ,” the tech answered nervously.

“Are you in charge of that lab, Valdez?” Rachel asked.

“ _Um, yes, ma’am_.”

“Do you want to be in charge of that lab _tomorrow_?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Valdez answered meekly.

“Then you _explain_ to me exactly what this compound is and what it’s going to do to him,” Rachel instructed acidly. “And don’t be afraid to use big words, I _am_ a doctor.” Valdez explained. “Mm-hmm. Good. Thank you,” Rachel finished, icily polite, and hung up. Then she turned to Jeremy. “Sit on the table.”

He did so immediately. “You’re kind of scary,” he told her.

She gave him a look. “This is supposed to bind to the drug in your system and neutralize it,” she described to him, indicating the syringe. “You should fall asleep about an hour after taking it. Now, my personal preference is to walk down to the hospital wing first and get you set up with an IV—“

Jeremy shook his head. “They’re not going to let me out of here until I’m unconscious,” he countered realistically.

“Oh.” She hadn’t considered that. “Well then, I guess you can fall asleep here, and then be taken to the hospital. But I want to get you on an IV, I’m sure you’re dehydrated.” He glanced significantly towards the mirror window. “Are they out there again?” she asked in a lower tone, though she didn’t hope it would be missed by the microphones. He indicated yes. “You want to try and kill me one more time?” she offered facetiously.

“Don’t tempt me.”

“Alright, let’s go,” she prompted, taking his arm and readying the syringe. Jeremy tensed and drew a sharp breath, and Rachel froze uncertainly. He nodded once and she stuck the needle in. She pulled it out a moment later and pressed a bandage over the puncture.

“Lie down,” she instructed, setting the syringe aside. He turned awkwardly on his side, trying to keep her in sight.

“Are you leaving?” he asked again.

“No,” she assured him. “I wish they would send in my pizza, though,” she added, looking pointedly at the mirror. “They could just leave it between the doors. You’re not going to rush the exit, are you?”

“No.”

Rachel went for a granola bar instead, giving Jeremy a wary glance before she turned her back on him. “I wouldn’t hurt you,” he told her, gazing up at her earnestly. “Never, at any point, did I actually try to hurt you.”

Rachel felt this was a grey area that would require further study to verify. “You talked about it, though,” she pointed out.

“Big difference.”

“And you tied my hands up,” she reminded him.

“Not, um… permanently,” he tried to tell her.

Rachel threw away her granola bar wrapper, resigned to getting no pizza, and sat back on the exam table. Jeremy approved of this. “Do you feel different?” she asked him.

“No.”

She reached a hand towards him and he flinched, but she persisted and felt his forehead anyway. Still warm. She rested her hand lightly on his shoulder. “You’re very tense,” she noted.

“Restraint.”

“Have you ever gotten a massage?” she asked curiously. His look spoke volumes. “No, I suppose not,” she agreed. “I think there’s a massage therapist on staff.” Jeremy buried his face in his arms. “Karl likes massages,” Rachel pushed. “Or, you know, he tolerates them.”

“Is the massage therapist also a bomb disposal technician?” Jeremy asked dryly.

Rachel blinked at him. “Was that a _joke_?” she teased. “Did you just make a _joke_?”

“No,” Jeremy insisted flatly. “Many staff members are current or former military personnel. And your brother is a bomb disposal technician.” He’d read her file, after all.

“I know that.”

They were quiet for a few minutes. Finally Rachel asked, “I don’t _really_ become inappropriate and hostile—“

“I thought we weren’t talking about that,” Jeremy reminded her. Then, “Yes.”

“Well… sorry,” she finally said. “I’ll try to curb that. So as not to frighten you.”

“Like on the phone a few minutes ago,” he added. “Or when I threw the beaker at you.”

She shook her head. “How do you feel?”

“Tired.”

“Tired like you might actually fall asleep?” she asked hopefully.

“Maybe,” he hedged. “Can I have the lights off again?”

“Not a chance, buddy.”


End file.
